Watching Out for Poor Vision

Poor vision in adults or children can be due to a number of conditions such as changes in the body or irregularities in the eye, diseases affecting the eye, side effects caused by medication or injury. Commonly, people also suffer from visual abnormalities resulting from aging or eye strain. These experiences can result in changes in your vision, which may sometimes cause discomfort and even make it harder to perform normal activities, like reading books or using a computer for extended periods of time. These vision problems can be expressed through the following symptoms: blurry vision, headaches, eye strain, and problems seeing at close and far distances.

Blurred vision is one of the most oft-reported signs of a vision problem. If you report blurred vision when you are focusing on distant objects or signs, you could very well be nearsighted, or myopic. If you suffer from blurred vision when you're viewing something close by it may be a sign of farsightedness, or hyperopia. It can also be a symptom of astigmatism because of an abnormality in the way the cornea is formed, or sometimes the curvature of the lens inside the eye. Whatever the cause of blurry vision, it is essential to have your eye doctor examine your vision and decide on the most effective way to improve your sight.

Another common warning sign of a vision problem is difficulty discerning shades or strength of color. This generally means the patient has a problem perceiving color, or color blindness. Interestingly, this condition is often not known to the patient until proven with a test. Color blindness is mostly found in males. If present in a female it may represent ocular disease, in which case, an optometrist should be consulted. If you struggle to distinguish between objects in minimal light, it could mean the patient suffers from night blindness.

A condition commonly found in elderly people is cataracts, which have a number of indicating signs which include: unclear sight that worsens in bright light, trouble seeing in the dark or reduced light, difficulty seeing small writing or objects, colors that appear faded or yellowed, unexpected improvement in near vision while distance vision worsens, painful puffiness of the eye, and a pale look to the usually dark pupil.

Throbbing pain in the eye, headaches, blurry vision, inflammation in the eye, colorful coronas around lights, nausea and vomiting are indicators of glaucoma, an acute medical illness, which calls for prompt medical attention.

With younger patients, we recommend you keep an eye out for uncoordinated eye movement, or crossed eyes, which could indicate a vision problem called strabismus. Certain behavior in children, like rubbing eyes frequently, squinting, head tilting, or the need to shut one eye in order to see things better, often indicate strabismus.

Even though some conditions could be more problematic than others, anything that restricts normal sight will be a burden, and impact your quality of life. A brief visit to your optometrist can save you from being avoidably uncomfortable, not to mention further eye and vision damage.